Team Northrup: Appenzeller

Janna did a nice job recapping yesterday. I will add that the girls have done very well since Wednesday. We have been able to muscle thru the time change with very little issue.

Today we woke up to rain in the beautiful hill and mountain country of Appenzeller. This region is known for its humorous people, manure aroma, and strong smelling cheese. Appenzeller cheese. The views are amazing. Everywhere we go the mountains add perspective and the houses dot their way up the hills. Distant peaks are covered in snow while short green grass covered everything. All perfectly mowed. I am not sure how. Is it because it is spring? Or do the cows and sheep eat down all the grass? I don't see any tractor marks; nor would I expect to on some of these steep slopes. And yet all the grass seems recently shorn.

We had yogurt, granola, fruit and breads in the hotel cafe before walking out in the rain to the train station.

First stop: St. Gallen. We had no intention of visiting this town at all on our trip. But with the rain, we figured we had to cancel our two hiking options. A little train time couldn't hurt - and it didn't. By the time we reached St. Gallen 45 minutes later, the rain had cleared up for good.

On the train enjoying the view

The door to the St. Gallen church

St. Gallen is known for it's 1400 year old monastery. Yeah. 14 hundred years ago. Like 800+ years before Columbus accidentally ran into America on his way to India. This makes historic Fort Snelling seem like the least historic place on earth. "Yeah, nothing cool really even happened here at Fort Snelling. It is about 160 years old. Did you want to see our barracks with the boarded up windows? Real plywood."

The Beautiful Interior

Anyway. It was neat. It was like a lot of old religious historical places in Europe. Old, well preserved, and full of interesting facts, legends and artifacts. The Cathedral happened to have an opera singer and orchestra rehearsing. That was awesome. Nothing like Cathedral acoustics. Then we visited another, more recent cathedral with dozens of hand carved, wood confessional booths in it. That place was somewhat dreary. The neatest thing, by far, was the library connected to the Abbey. Since ~600 AD monks had been storing up hundreds and hundreds of books. Then they built themselves a library that looked like it was set in the hull of a pirate's ship. With a wood in-lay floor (that required slippers to be worn upon entry) and hand crafted wood book shelves that held hundreds of books that were all worn out. Paintings on the ceilings depicted Jesus and Mary and others. Oh, and a huge globe of the world that looked like it probably showed up around 1500 (due to the inexactitude of the New World). The library wasn't big - maybe 60 feet long and 25 feet wide. But it was tall - maybe 30 feet high. The shelves went almost all the way up. I could have stayed in there for a couple of hours.

All the crosses in the church were covered for Lent, Shelby asked if we could stay
for Easter when they will be removed.

However, as it turns out, kids are not super in to old libraries. So we took off.

After grabbing some delicious street food we got on a bus to Stein - home of Appenzeller cheese.

Everyone said our kids would't like
Appenzeller Cheese, but they love it, really.

Totally a waste of time. We saw the cheese factory in action (included a robotic lift that was systematically moving cheeses around for aging). But it was not worth the bus ride there.

That said, I would have taken the bus ride just for the views. Amazing.

Happy to be on the train looking at the beautiful sights

Cowbells on display

Urnasch

Bus and train got us to Urnasch. This seemingly fake little town has "the cutest museum in all of Europe." Yeah, cool. But not nearly worth the 20 Francs. However, once again, the town itself was worth the stop. Old buildings, a big church steeple, and everything so well kept. Side note: I have to give it to the Swiss. They a run a tight ship. Everything well kept. I have yet to see the Swiss "hoarder". You know who I am talking about. Every neighborhood has one. The neighbor who seems to think that an old fence gate belongs on the side of his garage for the last 4 years. Or the pickup truck parked in the driveway with 4 flat tires. Or the bikes parked in the back yard all throughout the winter - wait, that's us! Never mind.

Anyway, the Swiss houses all look like the are kept up. The grass seems mowed. No rusted out cars anywhere, no scrap piles or brush piles. It is the Truman Show. Set in heaven.

Back in Appenzell

From Urnasch we went back to home to Appenzell. After walking the town for a couple of hours, we settled in back at our cute little hotel and ate dinner in a 500 year old cellar. Fondu. I hate fondu. But it was better than the lame American version of it. No oil. Here in Switzerland it is just a hot cauldron of melted cheese. And you don't "cook" your stick items in it. You just use your stick to poke at a piece of bread or potato and then mop up some melted cheese. Not super health conscious, the Swiss. But the food is so rich that it is hard to eat too much of it. Unless you are an American. I ate a lot of it and I didn't even really like it. We had other stuff too (surprising, I know) and it was all great. The food here has been really solid. If you just hop on board their high-brow, State Fair diet, the food is quite enjoyable.